Clean Eating: Whole Foods Top The List

Clean Eating: Whole Foods Top The List

Clean eating naturally translates to eating primarily whole foods, but what are they and just how good are whole and nutritious foods to a clean eating meal plan (especially if you are eating clean to lose weight)?

Let’s start with the basic question: What are whole foods?

It’s kind of simple. Whole food is food that is eaten in its natural state without any processing.

According to Tara Gidus, RD, whole foods are foods “in [their] natural state” that are “intact, with all of the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that are in the food.” WebMD simplifies it with a helpful example: “it’s the difference between an apple and apple juice, or a baked potato and mashed potatoes.”

There is no doubt that switching to a diet comprised of mostly whole foods can improve your overall health even if it means having to invest in some new cookbooks.

10 Benefits of Whole Foods For Clean Eating

1) Improve your mood
Beyond just affecting weight, eating highly processed foods or those with trans fats can have negative effects on your energy, mood, and the functionality of your brain. Eating a diet primarily composed of these foods can cause you to lose energy and become stressed, irritable, or angry. Cutting these foods out and replacing them with whole foods can help to provide you with more energy and improve mood.

2) Lower your risk of heart disease
Replacing highly processed foods in your diet with whole foods can lower your risk of heart disease. By consuming more vegetables, whole grains and fruit, you can introduce more fiber in your diet, which researchers have found to greatly reduce your risk of heart disease.

3) Lower your risk of developing diabetes
A diet rich in grains, fruit, and vegetables can help lower your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, which is at epidemic levels and primarily caused by poor diet and obesity.
In addition to that, eating whole foods can help those who already have Type 2 Diabetes manage their blood sugar.

4) Strengthen your bones
Your body needs vitamin K, calcium, and magnesium to help nurture your bones. And those found in whole vegetables absorb into the body faster and enter your system quicker. Vegetables high in these minerals are also a good option for vegetarians that choose not to eat the meat containing these minerals.

5) Easier to eat a balanced diet
Eating a diet rich in whole food makes it easy to eat well-balanced diet, which promotes good health and vitality.

7) Improve your sleep
Eating highly-processed foods can make it difficult to fall asleep, stay asleep, and actually get quality rest. Introducing more whole foods into your diet can help you achieve quality sleep each night and wake up feeling well-rested and ready to face your day.

8) Improve skin health
Highly-processed foods and foods high in grease, fats, or sugars can cause your complexion to worsen and can actually cause you to break out more frequently. Introducing more whole foods provides you with key nutrients for all-natural skin health.

9) Increase your energy
Whole foods have all the nutrients you need to thrive and have loads of physical and mental energy throughout your busy days.

10) Lengthen your life
Highly-processed foods aren’t good for you and can, little by little, harm your health, cause obesity and various diet related chronic diseases. Introducing more whole foods into your diet can help to lengthen and improve your life by improving your nutritional profile and therefore greatly improving your health.

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